To all Brownheads who've made it back, it's good to see you again. To all those who haven't, there is hope. Keep trying. The Samantha forums are far from working smoothly, particularly with regard to logging in. I suggest that all those who have made it back, post the details of how you did it here. I'll start.

Strengthened by the success of KarlD, leia_87, bluebelles, cruiseluver and nunesy, Mother O and I have been trying unsuccessfully for days. I've been trying to login with my old registration. The fields just clear and nothing happens. This has simply not been working at all. I don't have the good Captain's or Intldoc's 600 or so posts to lose, so I decided to register anew. The real oddity here is that whenever I tried to register using my former login name and e-mail address, I was informed that, "Unable to create new user profile. A user already exists with the account..." This tells me that our old registrations are still on file.

Like most people, I have multiple e-mail addresses, so I changed my login name slightly, from "Father_Orange" to "FatherOrange" and used an e=mail address that is new to the Travel Channel. Finally, a hint of success. I got a new screen that said, "Please select your producer profile by completing the fields below. The fields were my date of birth and my zip code. Then, I was in.

Will it work the next time? I can't say. Will my name and e-mail address appear when I hit the "Post Now" button? I hope not. The one thing I do know is that if we don't help each other negotiate our way back in, the forum will die. I'm pretty sure that Samantha herself will be unable to get back in unless we figure out how to do it and let her know. Samantha, are you listening?

I will also send a copy of this post to the viewer relations address that Mod Laurel kindly provided (viewerrelations@travelchannel.com).

I'll see what I can do to help Mother O. Good luck to you all!

FatherOrange

Am I there yet?
Actually, it is the lure of that glass of bubbly offered by Champagne Sparkles that gives me the courage to push the now scary “Post Now” button.
And let’s not forget that Samantha deserves our support here to get her through the next four years, just as her spirited self helps us all get through the dog days of winter.
But really, I could not have figured this out without the help of father orange, as I am severely tech-challenged. He knows how to delete cookies, and did. All I know how to do is eat them. He knows about installing Flash players, also apparently an important part of being able to participate here. Many members such as maryoflakewwod have disappeared since that change occurred as well.
I wonder how many members have given up in frustration over the past few months, and especially now when things are more than a little bit tough.
Has Captain Tuttle really and truly retired? Will chicagoboy return one day as chicagoman?
Will debandgary ever come back to report on their Disney trip, and others on their Prague strudl? Will we even recognize members with their new usernames? Will my question answering buddy Mr.Schneidman, and countless others, need to add a middle initial now, after they get another email address?
The drama continues.
O.K., I’m ready.
I’ll just tap my ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s no place like the Forums... ”

Now I really am Mother Orange, as always.

Little by little we will all make it aboard. It shouldn't be this hard, however. I can't wait to hear from intldoc and captuttle. Surely they haven't given up. We need to get a thread going like in days past that was fun and interesting. Just talking about logging on the forum isn't very satisfactory.

Perhaps not,nunesy, but it seems necessary at this point. Hopefully, such a discussion might be helpful to former members who hope to post again, as well as to those trying to work out the bugs in this system.
How did you manage to keep your old name with no alterations?
Did you have to change your email address and password or was your old information accepted?
Did it take many attempts and many minutes of waiting? Or did it work immediately for you?

Well,it took a bit of playing around and re-registering ot get back in. I received an e-mail from Travel Channel back in January to log in with the password travelchannel. This is what I used today to log in. I'm afraid to try and reset it!

OK, back again, but not without substantial difficlty. Attention, veteran members (and newbees too) - everyone has to re-register with new names and passwords. I was booted out of the registration system for:
a. Using my old name
b. Using my old password, and
c. Using my old email address.

One of lesser steel could get a complex from this kind of rejection, but I was heartened to read Mod Laurel's announcement that everything is just fine (and please ignore the man behind the curtain).

Truth be told (and there is no better place than this for truth), I've just emerged from surgery, so will be as brief as I've ever been. Good to be back.

Best,

Intl Doc

I, too, had to re-register and start all over, but I knew people were having their real names and email addresses show up, so I just tricked the computer and only gave my alias and my second email address and I got a new registration.

Karld: I too was given (as well as everyone, apparently) the password: travelchannel, but even that didn't work and my old alter ego had gone into the black hole of Calcutta.

Tonight it took me 4 different tries to get successfully logged on.

I have actually run forum boards in the past of my own and have never had this much difficulty logging in. Added to the frustration is the fact that once you do log in, it throws you back to the Travel Channel home page and then once you do wander back to the Samantha Brown forums, you are still not logged in. After the fourth attempt tonight, I simply logged in at the top of the page, was redirected BACK to the tc homepage and then suddenly *voila* I was logged in......strange, to say the least.

So after all that frustration we really should start some fun travel threads, n'est ce pas?

I'm like kard. I got an e-mail from the Travel Channel giving me a new password. It works, but not at first and not easily. I often have to try a couple times to get in. Intldoc, I'm glad you're back and hope it's nothing serious and you're OK. I kind of miss the Wiki site because you can have a private conversation with people. But I'm happy to be back on the good old, standby forum. Now, if Samantha would only cheer us up with a visit to us, that would be nice. Soon her new Passport show will air, then we'll have lots to talk about.Now, we need to get Captuttle out of hiding and we'll be set. Take care, you guys.

So what's with the user names becoming our real names? They did it on their own. I still log on as nunesy, buy it comes out Michael Nunes. Weird!

I typed in my user name and the password travelchannel like the email said to do.Here goes....

I just spent the past three days trying to log in again and finally just got in (same log in, same password!). It also took me ten attempts at hitting "reply" for it not to say "private messaging not allowed on this board." I pride myself on my ability to hit the "reply" button and for it to work so my confidence has been shaken.
So glad to see more and more people getting in...!

Hello Everyone!
Been a long time for me! I haven't been on this forum since my Berlin trip November 1!
My trip was wonderful! I loved Prague too, but it was cooold there in November!
The reason why I haven't been here in so long is because know matter how hard I tried, I couldn't log in! But I have been on the Samantha Brown Wiki.
I look forward to be chatting with you all again!
More later!
Happy Travels!
LPT

Yea! I finally made it back. Thanks all, for your most helpful suggestions in manuevering through the maze like re-registration process. Now we just need some new shows to talk about.

Thanks for everyones patience. I am working with the team at Travel to get all the forums issues fixed. Please contact me if you need anything or have any questions.
moderatorben@gmail.com

Yay! I'm still in!
It seems that there are now 3 forums for Samamtha, though. Which one should we be in?
But after some tries to get back in here I am.

If this posts my real name though, I will delete the post and then re register.

[I'm now editing this post to add one more thing
I have found since I came in- my member status.
That sucks, because I was really proud of being one of the first Brownheads back in 2001 I think. Not the only, I know but ONE OF. Jeeez.]
~Samiscute!!!!

Wow,
I think I'm in. Being in jail before was never like this. Lettering is VERY tiny on the composition box here, but then a month has passed in this Long National Nightmare we've endured so maybe I've just forgotten. Presumably I've lost my November 2002 registration date and am shorn of my 600 posts as well, but we always leave bits of ourselves behind as we move onwards in life and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I had shoulder length hair in the early 80s, too.

It took Mod Ben's efforts today to weasel me back in, and even then it didn't first work when I checked the "remember this" box on the log-in screen (which previously supplied me with many, many Groundhog Day sensations over the past few weeks perpetually returning me to the same spot). All Hail Mod Ben! And I hope you're well, Samantha. One of my friends dislocated her shoulder snowboarding last week, so don't drink and drive on the New England slopes without supervision, please (just drink). And with that, I think I have nothing else to say at present.

P.S. I'm not quite sure what that lightbulb icon is supposed to represent (I promise not to make any "dim bulb" references at this point in my forum career) but it seemed pretty cool so I try it here tonight. Have a good weekend Samantha, Ben, and etc. Some important names are still missing out there (Ashley? dejardins? HummingbirdLady? Kel???). Don't give up hope. Samantha needs you.

Hooray!!! Glad to see you're on board. The forum wouldn't be the same without you, indeed. Now we need some new shows, or a visit from Samantha to perk things up.

PS - Gee, I see we're back to usernames again. Hope springs eternal.

Well, I wouldn't be too sure that I'll be back regularly. I tried a second time tonight out of curiosity, and it went something like this:
logged in from this Samanantha Central screen

was sent instead to Travel Channel main page
[pause for profanity]
laboriously clicked to Samantha Brown,
and to Talk About the Show
found the infuriating log-in spot which meant I was not logged in.

Clicked log-in and typed in info yet again
Got sent back to Travel Channel home page again
[pause for much more profanity]

Logged on yet again there. Who knows if that did anything?

Clicked to Samantha Brown
Clicked to Talk About the Show
Found I was not logged in upon arrival
[much more profanity]

For no rational reason, I think at this point just clicked "reply" anyway. Why not? The proper way sure doesn't work.

To stunned amazement, the Reply Screen appears.

So I typed in this. Will I ever make it back again? I honestly do not know.

Tuttle considers retirement yet again... This may be more than I can handle anymore...

Holy Cow!
This time it worked precisely correctly.
(Clearly Tuttle is baffled by all of this.) In the future I promise to keep all this to myself. (At least I'm 3/5 of the way back to being a Senior Member again). But I will trouble you all no further this weekend.

Oh, the edit function works too. Believe me.

It took two tries, but I made it with little difficulty. Other than the automatic login feature does not seem to work yet.

It took over a year and a half for me to be able to login the first time back at Discovery, so Cox would have to be pretty unreliable to top that bad experience!

ihopjunkie!! I remember clearly your past frustration. You and all the rest who have made it through should be commended for your persistence. A big Thank You to unknown others and mod ben (a.k.a. Mr. Fix It) for all of his helpful concern and tinkering. And welcome back from your brief retirement, Captain Tuttle.
The detailed accounts of everyone's experiences have been entertaining and informative.
This time I had no trouble at all.
I plugged in my new username, new password, pressed login and was not sent away, pressed reply and did not get any grief, and here I hopefully am for post number 2.
I can hardly believe the edit function is working again, so I will have to investigate.

If you detect spelling errors in this sentence it did not work. If everything looks good then we are back in business!

Grrr it just took me 7 attempts to get in after the login screen telling me that my username was not found. I only got logged in after just hitting refresh. Mod-Ben, clearly whoever designed these forums has not fixed the errors. For all we know, Samantha herself hasn't been able to login. This is the ONLY forum where I've encountered such problems.

How are the rest of you gals and guys doing? I'm fine just waiting for Winter to end. Heading to California in early March to play with my friends and run rampant in Disneyland.

I'm having about a 20% success rate on my test runs so far, Mother O, although Mod Ben has been extremely helpful in my aid. Most the time I'm sent to the Travel Channel home page after trying to log in here on the Samantha Forum. But I've found it's actually a Good Thing to have my initial attempt to return me back to the same empty log-in screen I started out with, because both times that happened, my second attempt dropped me right where I actually wanted to be (a major surprise) - on the Saamantha Forum. And as one of those occasions was right now after an earlier evening out, I thought I better take advantage and say Hi while I could. Just passing through... Nothing else to say. Carry on, please. Does anyone feel this is much like Alice in Through the Looking Glass? Quite surreal, really... At least we must be providing Samantha with some interesting late night reading, worth a wry smile or two.

And look, I just crossed wires with Leia. Seven tries isn't that bad, Leia, but this allows me my fifth new post and Full Member status again while I'm still logged in. How silly will it appear when (or if) Samantha makes her initial return post to be told she's a Junior Member? Again, the word 'surreal' comes to mind...

Thanks everyone for the feedback. The technical team is working hard to get these things fixed. The biggest problem right now is being bounced back to the home page on login. I have found that when you login at the forum level, it seems to work. This problem is being addressed and should be fixed in a few days. Glad to see you all coming back as we work these issues out.
mod_ben

This time worked a tad easier. I logged in and was thrown back to the Travel Channel Homepage (insert appropriate explitive); so I tried to reply to a message only to be told that "private messaging feature is not turned on"....so far so good as neither am I!!!

I then hit the log in button again and "voila" I was actually logged in and ready to type.....would someone please stop the rollercoaster as I want to get off!

Well, I hope Samantha enjoyed watching the Oscars last night. I must admit I only saw Atonement, Juno and Elizabeth Part II of the nominated films so I didn't have much involvement, but what can you do...

Here's how I got onto the forum this morning. It's the 2nd time I've stumbled in this way, so there may be a pattern, or it may be purely random:

Click onto Samantha Home Page. To be honest, it's the bookmarked Forum Page I use to get here, so that's already an extra step for me right there.

Log-in on that page (you might as well somewhere).

It sends me (of course) to the Travel Channel Home Page (which I do not have bookmarked as I never had any reason to before: 2nd extra step).

Click BACK to Samantha Home Page (extra step the 3rd).

Click Talk About the Show (step 4)

I've now reached the Forum Page, which is where of course I wanted to start 4 steps ago. But there's more!

The upper right tab still says "log-in", meaning I'm not, but at the bottom of the page I click "reply" anyway (extra step 5). I get the little reply window with the message I've made an "error" (as if this were all my fault). So I close the box, being officially erroneous (step 6).

And then the miracle occurs. For at the upper right of the returned thread screen in place of the log-in tab is the cheery welcome to Capt. Tuttle! I'm in! It wasn't there before. It's a Travel Channel miracle.

So it only takes 6 easy steps to get where I already would have been automatically back in last fall's version.

But I'm posting on this quiet morning to announce two discoveries I've made, one maybe uplifting, one pretty sad. The perhaps upbeat one is that further up on this thread you will see the successful entry of the word "s*cks" (I still don't dare use it myself here). This is a significant development, I think. Use it with care, especially in these trying days on the forum.

But the second is this. When I click on my own name and get the window to see my previous posts, I find not 605 of them, but only the 5 made since my re-incarnation over the weekend (and since all five are already on the thread above, there's not at this point much reason for doing so). This comes as no big surprise since I figured that I'd slough off the 600 after changing from Capt. Tuttle to capt.tuttle with Ben's absolutely essential help. But sadly, when I then try to search Capt. Tuttle's messages, hoping I can still reach those other 600 posts, I only get 2 pages of references TO Tuttle by other posters over the last few years, but none of my own. So although all previous posts (except, sadly those in the Great Vacation Homes and Girl Meets Hawaii categories, all maliciously destroyed now) are still in there if you dig about, it does not appear that the search function any longer brings up our previous posts by name. Not sure if any of you used that in the past, but I think it's a loss. The previous Tuttle said a lot of pointless and sometimes dumb things to Samantha, but there were a few nice posts in there, too.

But then I suppose I'm just happy to be here at all. And right now it only takes 6 extra steps...

Hmmm... Make that 8 extra steps. This time after Step the Sixth mentioned above, I still only had the "log-in/join tab" staring at me at the top of the page. But I clicked on it this time (#7) and got the log-in page and entered info a second time, and I did make it back out again. I feel more and more like a clueless mouse in a maze. I can smell the Samanthan cheese so I keep scuttling about, but have no idea where I'm going.

So.....from the number of steps required to log on....TRAVEL CHANNEL is pretty apt?

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Thanks for your feedback. This should be fixed shortly.
mod_ben

It worked! It worked Mod Ben!

Like in happy times of old, a few minutes ago out of curiosity I stepped right up to the Samantha Forum, clicked the log-in/join tab at the upper right, typed in the information and was promptly welcomed as Tuttle (well, tuttle lower case) right here in Samantha's own forum. It felt really good. If indeed these dark days of winter are in fact over, I do thank you and the staff quite profoundly.

Of course I have nothing of importance now to say. Well, actually I do: thank you.

Nope,
Tried again late tonight and it was back to being booted to the Travel Channel homepage yet again. So disappointing. At least I only had to click on 'log-in/join' and not type in the information a second time to be recognized once I did get back to the proper forum screen again. (Reaching at straws here.)

Let us now retrace my steps in getting in just now.

Click on Login at top of this page. Taken to login page. I logged in and nothing happened. Sent myself back here. Tried the Reply button. Was told that private messaging is not allowed.

Try Login again at top. Your account was not found. Try again, nothing. Come back here and press Reply. It tells me to login. I login in yet again. Nothing. Press reply again...private messaging is not allowed.

Login from top, I login, it brings me back here and voila! I finally exist.

Can we earn frequent flier points for all of this traveling? :sigh:

Now after all that, I can't even remember why I logged in.

I don't want to claim this as being fixed yet but it seemed to work fine on my end. Anyone else still getting bounced out?

Just tried it twice, Ben, and it worked flawlessly both times. This appears to be most promising. Thanks again for all your work.

It Worked, It Worked, It Worked! FIRST TRY! *gives little dance of joy* AND, I after logging in the first time successfully, I was right at the discussion page I logged in at!
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY


o.k....so little things excite me.